Toothless remake of "Malabimba"
7 February 2008
Producer Gabriel Crisanti along with his then wife, the sumptuous Mariangela Giordano, produced and sometimes co-wrote a number of horror/sex movies in late 1970's, always displaying an appalling lack of good taste that was sometimes a good thing ("Malabimba" and "Burial Ground")and sometimes not such a good thing ("Giallo Venezia" and "Patrick Lives Again") depending on the relative talents of the director. (The first pair was directed by a somewhat talented hack, Andrea Bianchi, while the second pair was directed by talentless hack, Mario Landi). This movie is unusual in that Crisanto uses a third director, Mario Bianchi, the brother of Andrea, to basically remake his brother's film "Malabimba", and the result, rather than being repellent and unpleasant like the Landi films, is more just toothless and boring.

A woman is murdered by her drug addict husband, and (while still an attractive nude corpse lying on the slab) she manages to possess her nubile young daughter and uses her to get revenge on her husband, her husband's bent doctor (who was also her lover), her husband's crippled brother (who was ALSO a former lover), and the local priest because. . .well, he's a Catholic priest. She doesn't really NEED to possess her daughter though since she also seems to have incredible psychic abilities that among other things allow her to reanimate the dead.

Of course, the name of the game of all these movies is sex, and here this movie is a mixed bag. If you favor mature, voluptuous "madonnas" like Giordano you will not be disappointed with her portrayal of a compulsively naked and self-gratifying nun (the mother is also pretty damn attractive given the considerable handicap of lying dead on a slab for most of the movie). On the other hand, if you prefer the nubile, barely legal "lolitas" the unknown Jacqueline Dupree is a very poor substitute for Catyl Laennac in "Malabimba" in that she fails to masturbate with a teddy bear or fellate her own uncle to death or even get naked below the waist. What will be disappointing to either camp though is that the inter-generational lesbian sex scenes of "Malabimba" that pass for "the exorcism" have been replaced here instead by a strange scene of necrophilia (albeit one that makes necrophilia look pretty attractive). It might have been pointless to remake "Malabimba" to begin with, but this is compounded by the the filmmakers not faithfully imitating the first film nearly enough.

There is also, by the way, a hardcore version of this film out there, but while some may disagree, nowhere in the history of cinema that I know of has hardcore footage ever IMPROVED a movie. Not really recommended. Stick with "Malabimba".
9 out of 10 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed